Engineer asked for evidence ‘preserving’ IT system before subpostmaster jailed

A senior Post Office lawyer told an engineer to provide a court with evidence that would help with “preserving” its IT system before a trial which led to a wrongly convicted pregnant subpostmaster being jailed, an inquiry has heard.

Jarnail Singh sent an email to Fujitsu engineer Gareth Jenkins in March 2010, asking him to find the “shortest span” of transaction logs to “disprove or rebut” a defence expert’s conclusions that the Horizon system had faults.

The prosecuting barrister in the case, Warwick Tatford, told the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry that the advice sent by Mr Singh before the prosecution of Seema Misra was “disastrous”.

He added: “I’m sorry, this shouldn’t have happened.

“As far as I’m concerned I was prosecution counsel in the case… and I have obviously failed to ensure that there’s an atmosphere where an expert can be properly instructed.

“I’d like to think if I’d have seen it I would have done my very best to resolve this and put an end to this, but it’s very troubling reading.”

Under questioning from the barrister representing Mrs Misra, Edward Henry KC, the witness said he believed he was “misled” by the Post Office about the reliability and robustness of the Horizon system before and during her trial.

He said: “Quite where the failure to provide information has come from is unclear to me but I was not given a full position of the problems with Horizon, that’s absolutely clear, which involves being misled in some way – by whom, it’s difficult for me to say.”

Mr Tatford held back tears as he began his evidence on Wednesday, saying he was “ashamed that I was a part of this”, and apologised to Mrs Misra, who sat in the public gallery.

Mrs Misra began running a Post Office in West Byfleet, Surrey, in 2005, and was eight weeks pregnant when jailed.

She was suspended in 2008 and was handed a 15-month prison sentence in November 2010, after being accused of stealing £74,000.

Mrs Misra was one of more than 700 Post Office branch managers handed criminal convictions after the system, installed and maintained by Fujitsu, made it appear as though money was missing.

In December 2019, a High Court judge ruled that Horizon contained a number of “bugs, errors and defects” and there was a “material risk” that shortfalls in Post Office branch accounts were caused by the system.

During his evidence, Mr Tatford was shown the email from Mr Singh to Mr Jenkins, which read: “As you are our Horizon expert you need to telephone Charles McLachlan… to arrange a meeting where you can discuss all his reports and his concerns about the Horizon so you can deal with it and rebut it.”

The email continued: “… and then write a detailed report which would go to some way of progressing and concluding this matter and importantly preserving the Horizon system.

“Maybe the simplest and practical way of dealing with this whole question is to find a shortest span of logs, analyse it, disprove or rebut what the defence expert is saying in his reports.

“Just a reminder you are an expert for Fujitsu, you will be giving evidence in court, the judge and jury will be listening to you very carefully and a lot will hang on the evidence.”

Mr Tatford was also shown an email, which had been forwarded to him, in which Mr Jenkins said he was “reluctant” to provide an expert witness statement because he was aware of a report of a Horizon error in a branch in Falkirk.

The witness told the inquiry: “It’s my fault, I’m sorry. I didn’t remember seeing this, it would have made me ask questions.”

He added: “If I was reading this document, if I had cross-referred it with other documents that may have been the error but it’s obviously something I’ve missed and this is important and I’ve missed it and I’m sorry about that.”

At the beginning of his evidence to the probe, Mr Tatford offered his apologies to Mrs Misra and fellow subpostmaster Carl Page, whom he had also prosecuted as a junior barrister.

Mr Tatford said: “I’d like to offer my unreserved apologies to both of them.

“I know Mrs Misra… I can see her, and I’m very sorry.

“I don’t know if Mr Page is here, but I offer my apologies to him.”

Taking his time to apologise, Mr Tatford appeared to hold back tears as he said: “Sorry, I find this rather difficult, it’s not actually about me, but I do feel ashamed about what’s happened.

“The best I can do is try and help the inquiry and try and learn a bit myself.

“That’s enough about me; it’s much more important to answer the questions but I am sorry.”

Hundreds of victims in the scandal are awaiting compensation.

The inquiry continues.